Ryan Hiller, junior marketing major and communications minor, first picked up a camera his senior year of high school. Since then, he has taken his skills and started his own company, Hiller’s Photos.
When Hiller first started his photography journey, he borrowed his dad’s Nikon D3100 and began taking pictures of his close friends. He used the free software GIMP to edit his photographs, he said.
When Hiller started school at WSU, he decided to buy a Sony A6500 and a 50 mm lens, he said. For the most part, he still shot for fun.
During his freshman year, he started charging $25 for portrait sessions for friends and friends of friends. By the end of his freshman year, Hiller increased prices to $50 for one-hour graduation photo sessions, he said. He advertised his services on Instagram and Facebook, in groups like the Parent Chat Cafe and Die Hard Cougs, and through word of mouth via his friends.
With the new spring semester arriving, so do new memories, activities and most importantly, students. After last semester’s freshman live-in restrictions were lifted, freshmen from all over moved onto campus in hopes of getting the WSU experience.
Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, Natalia Nin, freshman English major from Sacramento, California, moved into her residence hall on the northside of campus with high hopes for an exciting semester.
“I am looking forward to living on campus,” Nin said. “It is a nice change of scenery and I’m eager to meet new people.”
Coming from a large city like Sacramento, Nin was very excited to experience the small-town lifestyle. It is a very big change for her, but she hopes to adapt quickly, Nin said.